Friday 13 September 2013

Three Months

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For the past thirteen years I have been reducing my appearances and have purposely not released any new material of a literary nature with view to entering a more private existence. I have always been a private person at heart, but events throughout my life have conspired to prevent this and thwarted any attempt to be private.

What most brought me to public attention were the television and radio programmes I regularly appeared on and also the books and documentary films associated with topics which hold the public imagination in thrall. It is for that reason I have not submitted a book for publication since the beginning of the 21st century. Likewise, I have scaled back my broadcasts in the media to a point where I no longer make them. I ceased giving interviews to the print media decades ago and only then in quality magazines. Moreover, it will soon be three years since I declared I am no longer prepared to provide interviews on the Highgate case. What there was to say has already been said many times over. I found myself answering the same questions again and again; questions which frequently already have the answers provided in my published account.

One of the problems, I quickly came to realise many years ago, is that interviewers, regardless of the subject, simply do not know the right questions and the questions are every bit as important as the answers.

I am still having to regularly turn down television and radio interview requests, along with a plethora of other invitations to partake in projects which would maintain this perception of me being a public figure, which, I accept, is exactly what I have been for the majority of my life. Yet what made me so is now in the past.

The concomitants of being a public figure have slowly eroded over the last thirteen years to a point where I stand at the threshhold of finally achieving meaningful privacy. Hence, in three months I shall step over that threshhold and become a private person. This will not affect my episcopal duties, sacerdotal ministry, art and music etc, but any involvement in secular preoccupations and the expression of views on same in the public hemisphere shall altogether cease.

I will continue to address questions on this blog for just three more months. Thus, if there is a anything you wished you had asked, but have so far not done so, you have until the feast of Saint Lucia 2013.


"The reality I once experienced exists no longer and although its memories are the most potent that I possess, they now seem so far away ─ possibly because next to the hunger to experience a thing, there is no stronger hunger than to forget."
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7 comments:

  1. What a sad news.I visit your blog regularly because it's very interesting and you are a wonderful person,a spiritual guide and an inspiration for me. I'm very sad if i think that i won't be able to communicate with you anymore but surely i respect your decision and i will always admire you. God bless you. With friendship. Alan(Italy).

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  2. My past does not exist. The world I once knew has gone for ever. All that remains is the perpetual now and an uncertain future. The rest is a shimmering reflection on the surface of a void.

    There is more truth in a single moment of reality than an eternity of cyberspace. Experience cannot be reproduced nor life lived via a computer.

    My spiritual and supernatural experiences can perhaps be attempted to be glimpsed through the transcendental prisms of art, poetry and music.

    Yet those with whom I share ultimate reality in a universal communion of spiritual empathy are already my friends and fellow disciples.

    Such people I would rather meet in person.

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  3. Dear Bishop Manchester, I'm touched by your beautiful words, surely i agree with you and i understand your feelings. Who knows if someday i will have the privilege to meet you in person: my admiration for you is sincere, and i feel in my heart that "spiritual empathy" you were talking about. I hope that sooner or later i will be honored by your friendship. Meanwhile i wish you all the best. Alan(Italy).
    P.S.: I really don't want to disturb His Excellency but i was wondering if there is a way to contact you privately in case i would need an advice, a blessing or simply to send you my wishes for Christmas or Easter. Obviously i would be more than happy to give you my personal email address.

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  4. We all have to let go of the past and the supernatural experiences you had once will always be there. I suppose I keep my trust and power in God and try not to allow such things to occur in my life though I am totally aware that such evil exists.

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  5. I have often wondered how Highgate Cemetery ended up as the prime location for a vampire, looking at the photos you can tell something is not right about the place (in the air & the trees) and you would assume a cemetery to be of holy ground. Something had to have happened from the beginning of the first burials, makes you wonder who they were and who placed them in the ground. Do you know if people are still being buried there? There is a section of the cemetery that someone has built a glass house overlooking a part of the cemetery, what a strange thing to do.

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  6. Bishop Manchester, you don't owe anyone of us an explanation. Just enjoy the winter season of your life. The torch you carried has already been passed onto the next generation. Thank you and God bless you.

    In Christ,

    D. (OCPRS)

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  7. Your Excellency,

    you have cut a damn impressive figure in the paranormal world--and popular culture--over the preceding decades. The spiritual warrior, bold yet lost in time, clothed in romance and mist. You've given us fun, gothic excitement, and not a little old-fashioned wisdom.

    That said, many of us will be nodding and will understand your decision. We will miss you. May you have many, many joyful years of productive retirement.

    Yours, as ever,

    Peter Michaels

    PS: Should you become bored on some stormy afternoon, and choose to write a memoir of those vampiric cases which you have previously left unpublished, the best-seller list is waiting...

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